


Percentages

by entanglednow



Category: Tin Man
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-11
Updated: 2009-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's hiding in plain sight and if he's a little angrier under his hat, a little more frustrated, well that's nothing terribly new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Percentages

Cain is not a man who talks. Oh he speaks just fine and has a knack with words when it really counts. He even knows how to get words out of people if necessary.

But he's never been good at _talking._

Which is why, when Glitch is told that there's a good chance his brain can be put back together with his body, Cain can't think of anything to say.

Or rather, he can think of a hundred things to say, but no way to say them. No possible way to say any of them. Though they're piled up so tight and so hard behind his teeth he think he might choke on them.

So instead he's left in some sort of fierce silence. A silence where he can't talk, where he can't explain. But where everything is still wrong. Only no one else can see it. No one else will explain to him why everyone’s so calm, why everyone's so happy. When every single atom of him is screaming that this is wrong.

Perhaps in revenge he finds himself talking less. As if the blockage has rendered all his other words useless.

DG would accuse him of hiding, which is why he's carefully not hiding anywhere she can find him. DG is better at reading people than everyone think she is. When she's paying attention she can be sharp as a knife. Cain thinks he's been cut deep enough to last a lifetime.

So he's hiding.

He's hiding in plain sight and if he's a little angrier under his hat, a little more frustrated, well that's nothing terribly new. Nothing that demands everyone's attention.

But, of course, Glitch feels the need to investigate. In his strangely penetrating way that's more a combination of random and coincidence but still manages to put him where he's supposed to be, or not supposed to be, nine times out of ten.

So his investigation, naturally, brings him to Cain's room, and Cain's still so full of all the things he's not saying that he thinks maybe he's vibrating with it all. He thinks maybe the hiding in plain sight didn't work after all.

Because Glitch, in his doorway in tattered clothes, head tipped to one side and face curiously hopeful, is something he thinks he wants more than anything, but at the same time, can't bear.

"You're very quiet," Glitch tells him.

It sounds like an accusation, though it was probably never intended that way.

When he says nothing Glitch slips in a little further.

"I'm not quite sure what variations of quiet you usually use for contemplation. You're a very quiet and contemplative sort of person but I'm beginning to think maybe this is a little excessive, at least I think it is. I'm sure that's why I came here because I was repeating it to myself all the way. In fact I was repeating it so hard I forgot where I was going twice. So I know it's probably important."

Glitch frowns.

"I'm pretty sure DG said something to me at some point? Maybe she pointed me in the right direction when I was lost. Either way it's important, so I'm now...duty bound to make sure you're alright."

Cain doesn't say anything and Glitch frowns a little bit.

Cain knows him well enough to know that if he doesn’t pick up the conversation thread soon then Glitch will lose it entirely.

"Maybe I just don't feel like talking," he says quietly. Which is the truth enough, even if it is only a half truth. It's the solution, not the problem. Cain can't think of any way to explain, even if he wanted to.

Glitch nods, like that makes perfect sense, then immediately shakes him head.

"You don't look happy though, silence and unhappiness, they're not good things. DG would say you're brooding, excessively."

Cain scowls then, a quick sharp expression that feels deep enough to stay for good.

"Perhaps I don't have anything to say, nothing good, nothing I should be saying. So I'm leaving well enough alone."

Glitch raises an eyebrow.

"Cain you're not making any sense," he says carefully, curiously. "Which, while an amusing irony, is worrying me more than a little. Normally you're full of sense, granted it's more usually a quiet, stoic sort of sense that you mostly keep to yourself but it's sense nonetheless. I'm finding the lack of it disconcerting and disturbing."

Glitch's face is cool under his hands, cool but soft and it tips perfectly when he takes a step and leans in. Glitch mouth isn't cool and Cain thinks that's maybe because it never stops moving. There's a brief start, a blink of lashes against his cheek, and then Glitch very carefully opens under him.

It's easier than it has any business being, and if he'd ever thought it would feel wrong, that it would feel like taking advantage of him, he'd been mistaken. It's everything it's supposed to be. It's soft and slow and careful, and new in a way that turns every push into something that drags him in deeper.

Until it's not enough and Cain's hand shifts back into Glitch's impossible hair, tries desperately hard not to tighten, not to pull him in.

A slender hand folds over his shoulder, shifts uncertainly, before tightening in one decisive movement. It's something close to relief that breaks them apart, Cain's sigh trailing the edge of Glitch's cheek.

"I'm probably not going to die you know," Glitch says quietly. "Though forgive me for being somewhat peeved that it takes my possible imminent demise before _someone_ decides to kiss me."

"You're not going to die," Cain says roughly.

"You might want to put a little optimistic inflection into that sentence," Glitch suggests, and Cain scowls at him because he knows just how to spot things when it'd be best if he didn't.

"You're not going to die," he says again, though this time it sounds more like an order, and he's aware it's skirting the issue entirely.

Glitch's head tips to one side. Leaving him watching Cain through an expression that looks, for all the world like it doesn't believe that Cain really believes that. It's a readable look on an all too often unreadable face. But Cain likes to think he's learning.

"Am I allowed to kiss you?" Glitch asks into that strange moment of quiet. He has one eyebrow raised, and his voice is questioning and amused, but it has just the faintest thread of hope tangled through it.

Cain exhales without meaning to, all the air just escapes from him.

Glitch seems to take that as a yes, he smiles, like he knows a secret Cain doesn't, and pulls him closer.

Cain folds a hand round the back of his neck, turns him sideways. The kiss is crooked, not as controlled, not as careful, but it's better. There are no questions in it, just little pushes, and the drift of Glitch's curious fingers across the back of his neck.

Cain pulls away before he wants to, drawn into some sort of awkward explanation. He feels like he has to give _something._

"I wanted, before everything, I just wanted to-."

Cain stops talking, sighs frustration.

"What else do you want Cain?" It's a simple enough question, but Cain's lost for an answer. For some sort of acceptable answer. He isn't even sure what he means by that. But he stumbles over an answer that feels honest enough.

"Whatever you're willing to give."

Glitch blinks at him, head tipped to one side, then he gives a strange little laugh.

"You really can be incredibly stupid sometimes you know."

Cain raises an eyebrow at him and Glitch smiles in a way that suggests he understands perfectly. It's a new and frustrating sort of surety. Cain has no idea where it comes from. But Glitch seems more than happy to kiss him again. To shift into his space in one smooth slide that's impossible to misinterpret.

Glitch's coat slides off of his shoulders in one reluctant movement, the shirt is only still hanging in the most hopeful of senses and flutters to the floor after all. Glitch has done little but move his limbs into appropriately helpful positions but when Cain's hands slip beneath his undershirt and lay on the bare skin of his waist he inhales sharply, catches Cain's fingers through the fabric.

"I've probably done this before. In fact, I'm almost certain I must have. It would be very sad if I haven't considering how old I am - not that I'm entirely sure about that either- but, that is to say theoretically I'm sure I've done this before. But practically- I don't remember, I don't remember doing it before, or how it's normally done." Glitch pulls a face, which for one brief moment isn't confused at all. "I know _how_ to do it obviously, that's rather self evident, and distracting..." Glitch pauses, frowns ever so slightly. He's clearly trying to hang on to the tail end of that thought.

Cain can't resist the delicate line of skin that joins his neck to his shoulder.

Glitch loses a dozen thoughts in one breath.

His sharp fingers are slip-sliding into the waist of Cain's pants like they're certain they belong there. Carefully unlacing while his mind is a thousand miles away. His nails are, at some points, more enthusiastic than the fabric can bear.

Cain laughs at the strange meeting of assurance and awkward uncertainty.

"Hey, be careful with those, I don't have any others you know."

"They're indecent, it's amazing you can walk," Glitch tells him, he seems only briefly bewildered to find his hands four steps ahead of his brain.

"They're efficient."

"Please, I could practically sculpt you in clay...if I knew how to sculpt, or where to find clay. There's a possibility I do know how to sculpt, though it feels unlikely. I don't think I'm a natural sculptor-" Glitch looks at his hands.

Cain catches them, holds his shifting fingers while he kisses him again. He lets them twist and tangle in his shirt when he leans close.

"If I do this wrong-"

"You won't do it wrong," Cain says quietly.

Glitch doesn't protest when Cain carefully steals the rest of the tattered lengths of his clothes, slipping them over his head and down his arms, and the long lines of his legs, before letting them fall off of the edge of the bed. If anything Glitch relinquishes every piece like he's perfectly happy to give Cain everything he owns, slipping underneath his arms to kiss him when Cain is too busy with cloth to stop him.

Until there's nothing left to give, or take.

"You look different out of your clothes."

"More naked?" Glitch suggests through a half smile.

 _'Fragile,'_ Cain thinks to himself. All long lines and angles that seem to join together in a way that's fluid and perfect. Glitch's pale skin is warm and he winds himself around Cain without shame.

"I'll get lost you know. You're very distracting out of your clothes. I'll get lost if you don't remind me, if you don't-"

Cain discovers that Glitch's ribs are sensitive, fine under skin and bone. The slide of Cain's hands makes him slither closer and press into the sensation like a cat. Cain's been more than witness to his curious talents, though he'd never expected this. If Cain was honest he'd tried not to think too hard about what this would mean. Glitch's helplessness, the fact that he's so malleable, so suggestible and so trusting. That he lives in the moment, with other people, and never properly beyond, it had always felt like taking advantage. But instead Cain is the one who feels overwhelmed.

Glitch has clever hands, curious and shameless and not even half as innocent as he'd been afraid of. Glitch's fingers know what to do even if he can't remember. They dig in whenever Cain twitches, slide wherever his inhales and half bitten off noises lure them.

Until Cain's sliding back into the pillows under the press of Glitch's mouth and the push of his hands. Left looking up at him, and Glitch, who smiles behind his own hair, wide and white and full of promise.

Cain, in that moment, knows exactly how Glitch must feel all the time. Because this is a memory he wants to keep, he wants it to be bright and sharp. But he has a crushing feeling that he'll never see anything like it again. That it will be gone, smeared over by tomorrow and the next day and all the days after.

Cain feels lost somewhere between his own broken almost desperate need to keep him, and his fierce need to protect him. Horribly aware that he can't do both.

Glitch laughs and finds his skin briefly fascinating.

Then fascinating _at length,_ until Cain has to take a breath and catch his hands.

Glitch's expression, surprise followed swiftly by interest and then a flow of half expressions that are as fascinating as they are addictive.

"You're very distracting."

Cain thinks he hears apology in Glitch's voice.

"And you think you're not?" He counters, and then can't resist pushing a long curve of hair across his forehead. Glitch follows it with his eyes until they cross in the middle.

"What? I'm not what?"

"Distracting," Cain says through a smile.

Glitch makes a noise that sounds rude and dubious.

"As distracting as you, almost certainly not-" he stops, fingers slip-sliding against Cain's skin. "I'm not sure where to put my hands."

"Put them wherever you want," Cain tells him.

So Glitch does.

Thoughts are so much more difficult then.

"I want-" Glitch stops, leans into him, a warm press of skin and insistence and the heavy edge of need.

"What do you want?" Cain asks, willing to give it, willing to give absolutely anything he wants.

Glitch shakes his head.

"I don't know." Frustrated bewilderment is tangled round the words. "I can't seem to hang onto anything, it's all- " He sighs and takes brief aggressive ownership of Cain's mouth. It spikes Cain's own need so high he barely restrains himself. Glitch pulls away, _forces_ himself to pull away while he's still thinking sense. "Maybe you should show me what you want instead. I think I'd like that." It's permission, and a plea for some sort of order.

Cain takes a ragged inhale and pulls him in again.

The bed is more than big enough to shift and roll them both, to put Glitch in the white sheets, where he looks less pale and more of a temptation. Far too much of a temptation, at least for Cain, who's resisted temptation for years and seems suddenly unable to do so for a second more.

He thinks he'd be half afraid of his own need.

If it were anyone else.

Glitch is both much more and much less fragile than people think.

Glitch has such long legs and they don't need to be coaxed. They slip open around him, drag him down and Glitch is, for one sharp bright moment, all ferocity and demand.

Cain can't do much but give in.

Glitch doesn't resist, doesn't object. He's soft and warm and needy wherever Cain pushes him. Two steps ahead of his own startled noises of pleasure, hands pulling at Cain's waist, dragging the solid weight of him down without complaint, and threading one of his legs maddening behind one of Cain's. And then he's just breathing into Cain's mouth, dragged to a halt by the bare skin under his hands and the press of Cain's body, a hard, almost involuntary, plea for more.

Cain twists away just long enough to stretch for the cabinet beside the bed, to drag over the bag that holds the oil that he uses for leather, the bottles clink together in the sheets.

Glitch makes a noise that sounds a lot like approval, or might just be impatience. His hands are pulling, demanding, with every sign that he knows exactly _what_ he's demanding.

He's still mumbling senseless encouragement when Cain opens him all the way with quick-hard presses of slick fingers and pushes inside. Glitch makes a half broken noise of startled discomfort, then shudders when Cain slides deep. He shifts his body just right, bending into the push like a dancer. There are nails in Cain's shoulders then and a tight catch of thighs at his waist. They're followed by a trail of breathless whispers into his mouth, a jumble of half-memories and sensations that leave Cain helpless to do anything but press deeper.

Glitch encourages him with sharp fingers and sharper teeth, pulling whenever he can.

Cain thinks he's leaving bruises on pale skin, holding too tight and pushing too hard. But the quiet murmurs of confused but insistent approval that fall against his mouth force him continue.

Not that he could stop.

He's not sure anything could force him to stop.

He thinks he's leaving his own jumbled words against Glitch's mouth. Words he's not supposed to say, words Glitch will forget, but he leaves them there anyway. They make Glitch's breath catch startled in his throat, then shake all the way out again. Make him clutch tighter and promise that he'll stay.

He promises that he'll stay.

Because he feels the same.

Just when Cain thinks he can hang onto it, onto all of it, he loses himself completely, and Glitch follows him over. Shameless and surprised and beautiful.

It's just the both of them for one brief, bright second, and then the world shudders back into being.

They're a hot untidy tangle, wound so tightly round each other that Cain thinks losing Glitch is impossible. The lines of him narrow but surprisingly strong where he seems just as reluctant to let Cain go.

"Is this my room or yours?" Glitch asks curiously.

"Mine," Cain tells him, hand still half drifting through the jumble of curls and knots that is his hair.

"I like it," Glitch tells him, and decides he must at that very moment be kissed again. Cain sees no reason to deny him.

The room is quiet for a long time.

Glitch fidgets, then stills, then fidgets again. A wave of purpose and peace that's strangely soothing.

"There's something I'm supposed to remember," Glitch says finally.

Cain holds his breath for a handful of seconds that feels like forever.

"You're having your brain put back tonight," he tells Glitch quietly.

"I am? I am, yes I am. Gosh, that's quite dramatic isn't it." Glitch marvels in silence for a moment.

The stillness that follows feels like it last for minutes, though the skies are much darker than they were before.

"I think have to go now," Glitch says quietly.

Cain tightens his jaw and holds on to all the words he can't say. He just nods, smooth and sharp; they slide apart, one fluid motion that suggests perhaps they weren't so tightly wound after all. Cain stretches back into his clothes in long reluctant movements. He'll take Glitch to the chamber. He'll take him all the way inside.

That's where Glitch wants to be, needs to be and wants to be, though Cain wants to go anywhere else, absolutely anywhere else.

Because this, it feels like death.

Not because Cain thinks the operation will kill him.

Cain's afraid because he knows Glitch won't come back the same, he'll come back someone different.


End file.
